


Storm

by thinkingaboutelephants



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dreamhusbands, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jealous Arthur, M/M, Secret Saito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:56:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8893276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkingaboutelephants/pseuds/thinkingaboutelephants
Summary: A snow storm brings some clarity and some cuddles.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deinvati](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deinvati/gifts).



> Massive thanks to my beta/best friend, droppedwithoutgravity!
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, deinvati (whatiwasreading)!

With oddly foreboding parting words, Eames’ cabby warned him that a snow storm was coming. Eames thanked him anyway with a nice happy holidays and the instruction to keep the change from his fare and then set out on a short walk from where he’d had the driver leave him. The temperature was in the teens, and Eames pulled his collar up to keep out the strong wind. The driver wouldn’t have minded taking him further, but there were always precautions taken during jobs, at least if they were led by anyone with a little bit of sense. Never getting dropped off in front of their headquarters was one.

The sky was dark with no site of the moon as it was hidden by even darker clouds, and Eames hoped he would make it back to his hotel before they opened up.

When he reached the abandoned office building where they were set up, he found that the space was warmed by a few space heaters and was lit by battery powered floor lamps. The lights were strategically placed near the door and around the space Arthur had claimed his own for the three-week long duration of their latest espionage contract. It was just over a week before Christmas and they were doing the official job in two days. The payout would be a nice gift for all of them. 

Ariadne had made a silly Christmas tree out of empty cans of energy drinks, festive coffee cups, and plastic water bottles and had cut ornaments out of sticky notes borrowed from their extractor. It was very cute and creative, Eames thought. But Arthur was not feeling the holiday spirit. Eames knew that he was ready to be back on African soil away from the sting of winter.

The man himself was lying along a dusty couch which he had pulled towards a desk where his moleskin and countless folders of intel were kept. The PASIV was resting on top of it as well, whirring with life and a line connecting it to Arthur’s wrist. When Eames was close enough, he touched the bare skin of Arthur’s arm and found the skin too cold to the touch. He hurried to bring all of the heaters closer to the pointman to warm him up.

Years ago, even before inception, Eames wouldn’t have dared to enter Arthur’s dream without permission. It was an outright violation of privacy.

Now though, he didn’t hesitate. He lied on the floor next to Arthur’s couch and pushed up the sleeve of his winter coat. He then pulled a line towards himself and pierced the needle into his skin.

 

The dream was the one Ariadne had been building and rebuilding inside Arthur’s mind since the job started. Eames thought it was damn near perfect, but he also knew Arthur, and Arthur wouldn’t stop until he was sure that there were absolutely no flaws in the design. Their mark, a district Senator from NYC, was intended to stay in one room throughout the entire dream. It was the second floor of the old man’s favorite bar, an elite and upscale place he and both of his sons were invested in. His new, young wife was paying the team an unbelievable amount of money just to learn the contents of her husband’s will in hopes that she could get him to change it before everything went to his ungrateful sons. But there was the chance that the mark could go against their plans, and the entire city needed to be prepared.

That was where Eames found Arthur. Near the end of the city, obsessing over the paradoxes that would keep the mark from reaching the edges of the dream.

“I feel a bit stood up, love,” Eames said in greeting as a couple projections passed him on the street. “You promised you’d beat me back to the hotel. What could you possibly still be doing here?”

Arthur didn’t appear to be startled. It was incredibly hard to do such a thing.

He turned away from a tight alleyway where anyone unaware would be turned around in the same direction without even realizing it. “I just need everything to be perfect,” he said matter-of-factly, not even bothering to look Eames’ way.

Eames smirked, already expecting him to say something like that. “It will be. Ariadne has learned quite a few new tricks. Suchin may be tiny, but she is one of the best extractors in the business. And Bodie-”

“-is a pretentiously named rookie who’s obsessed with you.”

Arthur’s sharp words made the smirk on Eames’ face turn from subtle amusement to full on delight. Truthfully, Bodie was an up-and-coming forger from southern California who took to the art as quickly as Eames did. Suchin had brought the kid on, and he’d taken to Eames just as quickly. While Eames had to admit that it was fun playing into his flirtations occasionally, arguably making it a little easier for Arthur to pretend he hated Eames, he had to make sure Arthur knew that it was all an act on Eames’ part as well.

“Oh, Arthur,” Eames kept his voice soft. “He’s harmless.”

“He’s arrogant.” Arthur frowned, finally turning toward him. “And he wants to get in your pants.”

Eames chose to ignore the latter claim. “Weren’t we all arrogant in the beginning? Some of us a little still.”

Arthur watched with affronted eyes as Eames approached him carefully. “I hope you mean yourself.”

“Of course I do.”

Eames was even more delighted when Arthur let him wrap his arms around his thin waist and he wasted no time in rubbing away the tension along the man’s back that had followed him into the dream. It was surely a mix of the pressure to succeed and the terrible quality of the couch he was laying on in the waking world.

Arthur’s voice was less clipped than before as he fell willing victim to Eames’ sure hand. “We don’t use more than one forger very often, Eames. We can’t be certain that he will rise to your level or if he will cause the whole thing to fall apart.”

“He won’t,” Eames promised, holding Arthur a little tighter. “Like you said, he’s obsessed with me. He does everything I say and does it well. He’s my own little hormonal protégé. You should have seen him at the Christmas banquet. He was a little sponge, soaking up every minute movement and expression of the younger brother. That is, when he wasn’t trying to feel me up.”

The last bit was a total tease and Arthur responded as Eames expected. The Brit earned a firm punch to his shoulder that would have forced him back a step or two if he wasn’t so wrapped around the other man. In retaliation, he joked about Bodie grabbing his ass when his forge went off to the bathroom. To that, Arthur threatened to dream up a gun so that he could finish his work alone.

“How much time do you have left anyway?” Eames wisely changed the subject as Arthur placed a now gentle hand in the spot he’d just struck.

“I didn’t set one,” he admitted, running his fingers along the stitching of Eames’ jacket while reaching into the pocket of his own jacket with his free hand. “Figured I’d just kick myself out of it.” He pulled out his die, holding it out to show Eames that he had full grasp on reality and the dream.

Still, Eames made a sound of disapproval. “You shouldn’t do that when you’re alone, Arthur.”

“You know me.”

“Luckily, I do,” Eames couldn’t help but smile at the look of guilt written across Arthur’s face. He pressed their foreheads together playfully for a moment before saying, “Well since I’m down here, it can’t hurt to practice a little, right?”

Arthur laughed smoothly, moving away from Eames’ hold as he returned his totem to his pocket. “Are you admitting that you need practice?”

Eames let him go with a quick kiss to his cheek. “Come on, you,” he said and then grinned. “You can roleplay as Bodie if you’d like.”  


He barely dodged the second fist Arthur sent his way.

 

They stayed down for another couple of hours while Eames perfected his forge of the Senator’s oldest son and even tried his hand at Bodie’s forge just in case the kid choked or Arthur strangled him before Suchin could get the information needed from the mark. Meanwhile, Arthur obsessed over every detail of the architecture, fixing things he wouldn’t bother bringing up to Ariadne so not to make her question her own skill.

He had just gotten rid of a sprig of mistletoe Ariadne had cheekily hung near the entrance of the bar without him noticing and had moved onto changing a painting hanging up in the corner from something abstract to something more conservative when the frame began to tremble against the wall. The entire building shook with the rumbles coming from the sky outside as the temperature in the room dropped by noticeably.

Eames could see his breath when he spoke. “Is that you?” he asked as he slipped back into his own skin, poker chip appearing in his hand.

Arthur went over to the heavy wooden door and opened it just in time for sheets of pure white snow to start falling to the ground. “No, must be- What time is it topside?”

“Half ten when I arrived.”

Arthur cursed and then grabbed Eames’ warm hand when the man joined him. He pulled him towards the emergency stairs in the back, leading to the roof where they could kick themselves from the dream.

 

Waking up always came with a feeling of disorientation, but Arthur and Eames had adjusted to it over time and could usually bounce back within seconds of opening their eyes.

They took proper care to the lines by returning them to the PASIV, getting rid of the used needles, and opening a couple of the silly little antiseptic band aids Arthur kept in the silver case. 

Eames grunted as he eased himself up from the floor and then followed Arthur over to the massive arched windows that lined the walls of the building.

The howling wind was smashing snow against the glass, and between the steady fall, they could just make out the emptiness of the streets that were quickly turning white, slick with ice. Eames knew how much Arthur loathed the cold and snow, and he knew they weren’t getting out of there anytime soon.

“We’ll never get a taxi in this weather,” Eames said with a ridiculous wink aimed at Arthur.

Arthur grumbled under his breath in reply, whining something about the point of weather apps if he forgot to check them more than once a week and that Suchin should have told them about this.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself or her, darling. We’ll just wait it out, yah?”

Arthur crept his arm around Eames’ waist this time, tucking his head onto his broad shoulder. He sighed, making his breath appear in front of him in a cloud of air.

“What is it?”

“I might have skipped lunch.” Arthur sighed again. “And dinner. I’m starving.”

Eames pressed a few of his fingers into Arthur’s side, making the man squirm away from him. “I leave you alone for one day,” he said, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

Arthur shrugged bashfully as he ran a hand through his hair which had lost most of its stiffness throughout the day, and the word adorable went through Eames mind. He was suddenly very happy that he was one of the few people who got to see Arthur like this.

Eames tugged his hand into his own again. “Let’s see if someone has a stash hidden away, yah?”

Their hunt didn’t take long. On the back of the table where Ariadne had set up station and made half a dozen models was a half full bag of M&Ms. In the bottom drawer of the desk across the room from Arthur’s, Suchin kept a box of granola bars with raspberries and almonds.

“They won’t mind, will they?” Eames asked even though he had already taken two of the bars from the box, ready to hand them to Arthur.

“Suchin most definitely will.”

Eames was always one to stare in the face of danger, but Arthur wasn’t one to try to stir up unnecessary problems so to keep the peace among his team. Eames thought he may need a little convincing.

“Well I’m hungry now too,” he lied, taking a bar for himself. “So I choose to deal with her wrath tomorrow. With me?”

Arthur probably realized what Eames was doing, but he eventually nodded anyway. A silent always was spoken from the sweet smile across his lips.

They set up at Arthur’s desk, Eames pulling a chair from Ariadne’s model table. Arthur pulled his long overcoat back on, trying to warm himself up, and mumbled a thanks to Eames for moving the heaters. They definitely needed them now. Eames sat several feet away from Arthur so that he could put his feet on top of the desk. Normally, Arthur would have pushed his feet aside and away from his work, but he was well occupied with stuffing his mouth.

Eames let him eat in peace as he did something else Arthur wouldn’t let him do usually. He grabbed his moleskin, turned to an empty page, started jotting down random love notes to Arthur in the man’s own flawless script. He’d just got finished with I still love the way your hair looks in the morning when Arthur nudged his shoe with the toe of his own.

“Mmm?”

Arthur was quiet for too many moments which made Eames look up at him expectantly.

“Do you remember the morning after our wedding?” Arthur finally asked.

At that, Eames set the moleskin aside and removed his shoes from the desk. It took years of practicing self-control to not turn around and make sure no one else was in the room to hear Arthur’s question. It was bizarre to hear those words in their place of work. They had agreed it was for the best to keep their relationship a secret and mask it with their teasing banter and sarcasm.

Since they were the only ones around, Eames was able to answer honestly and freely.

“Vividly,” he said, not fighting the smile that spread across his mouth. “You were convinced it had all been a dream.”

“I still feel like that sometimes,” Arthur smiled too. “It just... it still doesn’t make any sense that we get to have dreamshare and this.” He motioned between them with a hand not holding a half-eaten granola bar.

Eames knew that feeling. Most people in their line of work had to keep their family lives completely separate from dreaming in order to keep it safe. Even then it didn’t always work out as hoped. Sometimes jobs went sideways, and family was used as leverage. Then there were obvious cases like Dom and Mal and the reality that this job could very well end in one or both of them losing their minds. Eames thought about it all the time, but he’d rationalized it. He had thought Arthur did too.

“Our job definitely has its risks,” he told him. “But we get to be happy too, Arthur.”

“I know that, Eames. I do.”

Eames had to lean forward when Arthur’s voice got softer. “It’s just hard to believe sometimes,” Arthur said and then took a breath, making Eames stay quiet. “Do you ever think about it?” he asked. “Not keeping us a secret I mean.”

“Hmm,” Eames thought for a minute before he was struck with a thought and had to choose his next words carefully. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Bodie, now does it?”

Arthur’s guard was completely down, feeling completely safe with Eames, because he flinched noticeably. “No. It doesn’t. Well, I don’t know. Eames, don’t make me say it. I’m not some jealous trophy wife who doesn’t have any confidence-”

Eames shushed him quickly. “Of course not,” he said and then leaned close enough to trail his fingers across Arthur’s shaking knee. “No need to be territorial. I know who I belong to.”

Arthur had seemed to deflate from embarrassment but then filled back up with Eames’ words of assurance.

“I know,” Arthur said. “I just get tired of pretending is all. I’m not as good an actor as you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Eames patted him on the knee once more before straightening in his seat seriously. “But I understand. I just have to return to what I said a minute ago. Our job is full of risks. While acting and pretending that you aren’t what gives my life true meaning may be difficult at times, it’s better than having that used against me if a situation should ever arise. I’d hope you feel the same way.”

“You know I do.”

“So we have to continue to be careful,” Eames reminded him, “as much as you don’t like it or it doesn’t seem fair.”

Arthur was quiet for a moment before he said, “Maybe we can tell a few people, people we trust.”

“Cobb knows. Ariadne. I don’t think there’s many others you trust besides me, darling. You wouldn’t even let me tell Yusuf until our first anniversary.”

Eames was teasing, but he was right. He knew that Arthur was aware of that. Usually Arthur was the rational one, the calm and calculated one. It was strange having the roles reversed, especially because of some insignificant flirty forger who they would probably never work with again.

Arthur laughed softly, shaking his head. He locked eyes with Eames and then curled a finger towards him.

“Hey, come here,” he said, finally returning to the sure Arthur that Eames was in love with.

“Why?” Eames questioned with a grin, teasing.

“Just come here.”

“Not going to hit me again, are you?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “That was in a dream. Therefore, it didn’t really happen.”

Eames laughed. “Is that how it works?”

“Yes. Now come here.”

Eames did as he was told and bent over Arthur as the man tugged him forward and pressed his mouth against Eames’. It was a sweet and slow kiss that Eames had missed all day long while spending his time working with someone else. He wanted the kiss to go on and on, but it was rudely interrupted when Arthur’s mouth opened wider than necessary and a massive yawn broke free.

Eames hurled himself back, chuckling. “Darling, that was very kind of you.”

“Sorry,” Arthur said sincerely as he ran the back of his hand over chin. “I didn’t realize how tired I am.”

Eames reached forward and ran his fingers around the curve of Arthur’s ear. “Why don’t you lie down and rest for a while? I’ll wake you when the storm’s over and then we can head back to the hotel.”

Arthur rubbed at his eyes, again, adorable, and nodded. He stood long enough to get rid of the empty wrappers and return what he hadn’t eaten to their rightful places. He took off his jacket before he pressed himself to the back of the old couch.

“Lay with me,” he said, making grabby hands at Eames who watched him with a fond expression.

“I truly don’t think we will both fit.”

“Yes we can,” Arthur said sitting up, pouting as he looked at Eames expectantly. “Body heat and all, Eames. I’m really cold.”  
It only took a moment for Eames to realize what he was silently asking for.

“Oh I see. You want to lay on me instead of that awful sofa, is that it?”

Then Arthur smiled that smile that Eames fell for more and more ever time, dimples showing and eyes crinkling at the corners. Eames shook his head in amusement but happily joined his husband on the couch as the snow continued to fall outside.

 

If Eames was anyone but himself, it may have been somewhat humiliating to wake up in the middle of his place of work with the man who he was pretending he wasn’t married to fast asleep atop his body as his co-workers stood over them with wide and curious eyes. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, let alone sleep through the night and then awake in their current predicament.  


What little humiliation Eames had in himself to feel was quickly overshadowed by the pain in his neck and lower back from the horrid firmness of the sofa. He ignored the smirks across Suchin’s and Ariadne’s faces as well as the pinched frown on Bodie’s, and instead, he shook Arthur awake gently.

Arthur was a little more affected than Eames when it came to the judgment of other people, and his first reaction was one of defense and diversion.

“What the hell are you doing here?” was the first thing out of his mouth when he registered their presence, and every wall that he let break down with Eames shot back up per usual. That vulnerable and soft voice from the night before was replaced with a stronger, deep tone that was a total contrast to the mess of Arthur’s hair and the cute crease across his cheek.

“We came here to work,” Suchin told him, chuckling. “I don’t know about you though.”

“What kind of night did you two have?” Ariadne said, appearing mostly amused but also confused as to how they were going to explain this away. Eames was wondering the same thing.

He chose to fall into his flirtatious persona that wasn’t far from the truth of his character and play up the ridiculousness of the situation, at least from an outsider’s point of view who didn’t know about his relationship with Arthur. “A great one,” he said. “It took a lot to convince dear Arthur here not to leave me alone in this scary place when the snow started coming down last night.”  


The storm was over, he noted as looked out the windows, but there was still a soft drizzle of snow as was evident from the wet spots across Suchin’s coat and the shivers running visibly across Bodie’s shoulders. Clearly the California native struggled with the snow as much as Arthur did, though Eames would never give voice to that comparison or any other one for that matter.

Ariadne laughed and went over to her table to fiddle with her models, and Suchin shook her head at him. “Where’s the empty bottles?” she asked. “Because I’m sure copious amounts of heavy liquor were involved.”

“Why do you say that?” Arthur asked, arms crossed over his chest.

Suchin answered him with a quip about him being unable to stand Eames unless he was under the influence. Bodie spoke up too, but he directed his words to Eames.

“No other reason you’d let the stiff end up in your lap like that, right?”

While Suchin’s appraisal was one based on the front Arthur and Eames put on to protect what they shared in their private lives, Bodie’s words were meant to hurt. Not to hurt Eames, but to hurt Arthur. When Eames noticed that Arthur had overheard him, he made a split second decision.

“That’s not actually true, you see,” he said to the young, clueless boy. “We happen to be married.”

“WHAT?” Suchin shrieked with a kind of outburst neither Eames nor Arthur had experienced after working several jobs with her together or separately. Arthur’s face was one of pleased shock, and Eames could hear Ariadne’s knowing laughter from across the room.

Bodie looked absolutely horrified.

He tried to sputter out some cool reply, but he eventually gave up and walked away to bury his head in some files Arthur had given him on his forge’s favorite past times and previous lovers.

Suchin got to work too after getting confirmation from Arthur that Eames was telling the truth.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, walking over to her desk.

Eames smirked to himself and tried to remember that they needed to replace the woman’s pilfered snacks before she noticed. He full on smiled when Arthur stepped into his line of vision.

“Was that a good idea?” he asked even as he bite his bottom lip so not to give away his happiness.  
Eames raised a hand and traced his thumb along the place where he knew Arthur’s dimples would be, and he pressed until the shallow space in the man’s cheeks appeared.

He nodded. “We can trust Suchin,” he told him. “And Bodie won’t say anything. I doubt my being married will sway his affection for me. I’m quite irresistible, don’t you think?”

Arthur laughed at that and turned his back on Eames long enough to let Suchin know that they were going back to their hotel to change and freshen up and then they would return.

“I am, aren’t I?” Eames asked again as Arthur pulled on a pair of gloves.

“Of course you are, Mr. Eames,” he said as they made their way outside. Out there, as snow fell around them, he said it once more with his lips pressed against Eames’ just in case his husband didn’t believe him the first time.


End file.
